WASHINGTON — Oil and gas companies injected hundreds of millions of gallons of hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals into wells in more than 13 states from 2005 to 2009, according to an investigation by Congressional Democrats.

Companies injected large amounts of other hazardous chemicals, including 11.4 million gallons of fluids containing at least one of the toxic or carcinogenic B.T.E.X. chemicals — benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene. The companies used the highest volume of fluids containing one or more carcinogens in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.

Millions of dollars have been spent remediating older leaking underground storage tanks used at gasoline stations. the primary contaminants were BTEX.

I live in PA, right in the center of a shale formation being fracked right now. There are two sides to every story.

Gasland is utter sensationalist bullsh#t. I can't even start a conversation with it because every single facet is twisted to be inflammatory.

People are in an uproar becuase they are injecting diesel fuel in places with the frack water. Where do you think the diesel came from?! The fact that the aquifer is 100 feet down and the gas is 5,000 feet down seems to go over the heads of many folks.

I've seen wells lit on fire around here for decades before the gas companies showed up. The natural gas is, well, natural. It's been in the water here for as long as people have been drilling water wells.

There are some companies doing a lousy job. Cabot Oil and Gas seems to have an environmental policy along the lines of "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission".

Forunately, they seem to be in the minority. Overall it seems to be a fairly low-impact means of feeding our fossil fuel habit. I think the debate on the sources of and issues with that habit belong elsewhere. But accepting that it's going to come from somewhere, even with all this occurring in my back yard, I'm not crying NIMBY.

Hi Base.. thanks for that explanation of drilling and fracking. That was cool. Can you help me understand something. The NY times article says they use chemicals in the process of fracking, including things like benzene, but you seem to say that they only use fresh water.

Maybe I misread this, but would you address the use of chemicals? It does appear to me that you are saying that ground water is being protected by all of these steps you explain, the cementing and such.. But could you expand on the use of chemicals? And what that article is saying.

We have a big energy problem on this planet. Nuclear looked good until the Japan incident, much of the world's oil has a big political issue, and wind&solar can't fill the gap. We should conserve and use less but this won't fix the problem.
Shale gas and shale oil will go a long way on this continent to helping us manage for longer. Shale gas in particular is abundant in some areas and should play a much bigger role in the future as it is probably less damaging than the alternatives. In fact we should stop using coal for electricity generation and use more gas.
Disclosure: I work in oil and gas exploration

when I started this thread my main concern was in two areas; the potential for contamination to groundwater, and that the regulators actually do not require the fracking fluid to be identified. I saw that the "recipe's" are proprietary, and my response is that it is my earth too and I want to know what is being injected, pretty simple.